Mittwoch, 14. Juni 2017

Whats new in ChromeOS Milestone 61?

Hey, my Acer R11 (cyan) got another update today in dev-channel: M61 with a lot of changes :)


NEW in 61.0.3159.8 (current dev as on 25 July 2017):

Apps can now access external SD-Card. Tested with 'Total Commander' - it requests permission on first access to SD, and can then read and write to it. If you don't grant the permission(sdcard access, not the general permission for file access), i couldn't find a way in Settings to re-enable it.
'Amazon Prime Video' App don't see any external card.
'Spotify' also don't see any external card.
'DiskUsage' don't see the card, too.
'ZArchiver' sees it but it gets displayed empty (no read/no write).
If you wan't another app from google play/f-droid/amazon apps tested, just drop me a comment :) .


New Loginscreen

At first, there's a new loginscreen/lockscreen with a more modern simple design, and without that square-box around your profile picture anymore.

New Lockscreen, similar to Loginscreen but with PIN-Input too.

Only issue i've encountered so far: if you're keyboard only on a chromebook with a single user setup, you need to tap about four times on <tab>-key to get to the password field. In older releases i could instantly type my password.



Nougat

And then theres the long-awaited Android Runtime update from Marshmallow to Nougat, 7.1.1 with Security Patch from 1.July 2017, to be exactly.

Means: after i first booted M61 i got a window informing me about a critical update... but it needed 30% batterycharge, even with the charger connected... so i left it alone charging. After reaching 30% it started the update/migration itself. Took some time, but worked without interaction or problems, like a update should. Couldn't take screenshot this early at login - sorry. But got a nice notification after the update:

The update was successful. You can now use Android-Apps.

So whats new with Android 7.1.1 on chromebooks?
At first, google play: if you're not in maximized-mode(with onscreen button) it is narrower - about 25% of screen-width (and about 90-95% screen-height).

smaller/narrower windows, but freely moveable again
Playstore - is this setting to hide installed apps new? ;)


Then i started a game i played on M60 as well: Final Fantasy IV, Androidversion.
At first it looked bad to me, because on M60 it couldn't go fullscreen, and instead of using 70% width and 100% height of the screen as in M60 it was a small, freely movable, window with about 50% width and 50% height only filling a quarter of my screen. Okay - hey - let's try to maximize (immersive key, some call it F4 ;) ) it. Damn, the same as in M60 it force-closes. But after restarting Final Fantasy IV it was still maximized. On M60 you had to press the immersive-key (F4) everytime. And another Force-Close -.- Just one more try, and to my surprise, it's now working fullscreen without any issues. Nice.

If you want to maximize it's telling you to restart the app - new in M61

FF IV - Fullscreen without dock or titlebar

But theres still two things i liked to be fixed. As a good example i like to use Amazon Prime Video (Android App, because it allows you to use it offline): It is now more phone-like if not maximized with a ratio of about 1:2, but of course won't autorotate, so you see only the middle part of the video. Here i hope it will get the quarter-screen-sized and freely movable window as Final Fantasy IV too and continues to play if it looses focus - would be really nice to watch streams while browsing like picture-in-picture mode.

Okay, the R11 got a tablet mode too if flipped, so what about Android Apps there?
It just shows one app maximized at a time as usual.



What else is new in M61? 

As in M59, but missing in M60, they brought the ChromeOS-Settings back to material design. Nice, sometimes a bit fiddly with the touchscreen and big fingers, but with a bad thing for bug-reporters: you can't copy most informations (buildtime, version, arc-version) anymore at once -.-

Material-themed Settings




And what not?

There's still another bug that bothers me: Sony's DualShock 4 can't be used with bluetooth on the R11 anymore. And now with true fullscreen for android apps it would be a pleasure to hook my R11 via HDMI to my TV and sit on the opposite wall of the room and play via bluetooth gamepad. But for now via usb it works great - so i need either a long usbcable or a long hdmi-cable -.-

For the non US-Layouts like German, you still can't snap or dock windows to the left or right with keyboard shortcuts - But theres a bugreport going on about this since january now...

And with the new material settings, like in M59, there's no more night-mode but instead you can choose if wifi stays on or not in standby.

Thank you for reading and as everytime i'm glad to hear feedback, your experience and more about this article, my blog itself or some suggestions via mail or in the comments below. David-Lee

Sonntag, 11. Juni 2017

[unfertig] ScummVM / GoG-Games / Retrogaming Linux/Chromebook und Sprachpatches

Hier werden Anleitungen für diverse alte Spiele unter ChromeOS (mit crouton) und generell Linux veröffentlicht.
Auch mal Links zu Sprachpatches und Tipps, wenn mal was nicht so einfach funktoniert. 

ZakMcKraken: 

Problem:
     Gog-Version hat einen Linuxinstaller, der Sprachpatch jedoch nicht.

Anleitung:

  • Gog-Version installieren 
  • Sprachpatch von http://la-patches.gandimann.de/ (GOG-Patch v1.0) mit wine (1.6.2 läuft hier gut) ausführen: 
  1. Beim ersten mal das Verzeichnis vom Spiel angeben (~/GOG Games/Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders/). 
  2. Beim zweiten mal das Data-Verzeichnis (~/GOG Games/Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders/data/). 
  • Danach die ini Datei in ~/GOG Games/Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders/ verändern: Bei [zak] den Wert "Path" ersetzen durch den absoluten Pfad ersetzen (bei mir path=/var/host/media/removable/USB/GOG Games/Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders/data). Bei [zak-fdd] das gleiche, nur das Unterverzeichnis /FDD/ anhängen und bei [scummvm] kann, muss aber nicht, noch der Pfad zu den Scumm Themes angepasst werden: themepath=.\ScummVM\ 
Danach kann das Spiel über den normalen Launcher (Startmenü/Desktop) der vom Gog-Installer angelegt wurde, gestartet werden. Möglicherweise gibt es noch den Fehler, dass das Spiel nicht mit Alt+F4 oder Alt+Tab verlassen werden kann. Ein Strg+Q schliesst das Spiel direkt (vorher speichern!).


[to be continued] geplant sind Riven - The Sequel to Myst (Gog Version und Sprachpatch Deutsch), Starcraft 1.16.1 (nicht die neuere Free-Version, welche mit Wine nicht läuft), Kriminal Tango (2.0, 2-D, Freeware)

Mittwoch, 22. Februar 2017

Asus eeebook x205ta Tipps n Tricks for Linux and Windows

Linux/Debian:

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.0-rc6-vivid/
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=759656
http://blog.einval.com/debian/CDs/Jessie-EFI_6.comments

Windows:

"For some reason they sent the drive encrypted, I went into Windows settings and Unencrypted it. Crystalmark scores went from ~60-80MB which I was pretty disappointed about, to 160MB. I have screens at home showing the change don't have them here to post. If you don't need it encrypted which I'm sure most won't, disable it immediately. Still trying to figure out the low sd speeds a 45MB per sec card is scoring between 12-20MB."

wimboot

turbo-enabled(locked) with charger plugged in

"For people still having problems where the smart gesture software stops working after resume, this seemed to work for me:

Create a .bat file with the following commands:

Code:
taskkill /f /im AsusTPCenter.exe
taskkill /f /im AsusTPHelper.exe
The problem seems to be with these and not AsusTPLauncher. After the .bat runs, AsusTPLauncher will automatically restart those applications.

Put the .bat somewhere where you won't mind leaving it permanently. I put mine in C:\Utility\Scripts\

Now you want to schedule this .bat to run every time the laptop resumes. Press Win + R and enter 'Taskschd.msc' to run the Task Scheduler. Click create basic task, and give it a name. Description is optional. Set trigger to 'When a specific event is logged'. Set log to 'System', source to 'Kernel-Power', and event ID to '507'. On my x205ta I found this event to happen every time it resumed from sleep. I assume it is the same for all x205ta laptops. If you find these instructions do not seem to work for you, if may be that this event does not happen on your x205ta. Try looking up how to use the Event Viewer to find an event that always happens upon resume for you.

Set action to 'start a program'. Set program/script to the .bat file you made. Click next. Check 'open the properties dialog for this task when I click finish'. Click finish.

Click 'change user or group'. If you are on an administrator account, type in 'system' and click ok. If you are not on an administrator account, type in the name of your admin account and click ok. Select 'run whether user is logged in or not'. Check 'run with highest privileges'.

Click on the 'conditions' tab. Uncheck 'start the task only if the computer is on AC power'.

It wouldn't hurt to go to the 'settings' tab and change 'stop the task if it runs longer than' to '1 hour', and 'if the task is already running, then the following rule applies' to 'stop the existing instance' just in case the .bat fails to close on it's own for whatever reason.

Click ok. Enter login credentials if necessary.

If you want to test it to make sure the .bat is actually running each time you resume, add a temporary third command to the .bat:
Code:
echo test>>C:\TEST.txt
Put it to sleep, wake it up, and then check for the TEST.txt file in the root directory of C:\. Subsequent resumes will add a line of text to the file each time.

I imagine this will work for other pc models having this issue with the ASUS SmartGesture software, though you might have to use a different event for the task scheduler.

Hope this helps."

Fix Crosh Window and start as many as you like at the same time

German: Die deutsche Version findet ihr weiter unten.

To Fix the non working Crosh Extension and even add the possibility to open multiple crosh windows and cycle them with alt+tab do this:

From the browser, press crtrl-alt-t. This will bring up crosh in a tab. Then in the upper right browser menu, select 'More Tools > Add to Shelf'. Then right click on the newly added icon in the app shelf, and select 'Open as Window'.

Btw. did you know you can also use the required Secure Shell Extension to open a crosh?
Add a connection for username "crosh" and hostname ">crosh". (Actually, the username can be anything).
credits to Dale Brayden and the ChromeOS Mailinglist

[German]

Momentan funktioniert in aktuellen Chrome OS Versionen die Crosh Erweiterung nicht mehr. Um sie zu reparieren und die Möglichkeit zu haben mehrere Fenster gleichzeitig zu haben und mit alt+tab wechseln zu können:
Startet die Crosh im Browser mit strg+alt+t . Wählt nun im Chrome Menü rechts oben (die drei Punkte bzw Striche) "Weitere Tools" -> "Zu Ablage hinzufügen..." und macht ein Häkchen bei "In neuem Fenster öffnen". Damit startet ihr nun die Crosh ohne Erweiterung. Soviele Fenster wie ihr wollt und die Shortcuts F1-F11 funktionieren auch.

Übrigens, wusstet ihr, dass ihr auch über die Secure Shell Extension eine Crosh starten könnt?
Verbindet euch einfach mit dem Nutzernamen "crosh" zum Hostnamen ">crosh". (Theoretisch ist der Nutzername beliebig)

Danke an Dale Brayden und die ChromeOS Mailingliste